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Sports of The Times; Finally, A Member Of the Club

ROBERT L. JOHNSON was introduced yesterday as the owner of the N.B.A.'s expansion franchise in Charlotte, N.C. In the hours leading up to the news conference, there was a mad scramble to determine whether Johnson, a 56-year-old media mogul, was the first African-American to be the principal owner of a major sports team.

Depends on your definition of major.

Robert Douglas, who is called the father of black basketball, formed the revered Harlem Rens in the 1920's. The Rens were a major team, winning world championships in the 1930's. In baseball, Rube Foster founded the Negro National League in 1920 and owned the Chicago American Giants. That's major.

But in the context of the contemporary multibillion-dollar sports culture, Johnson's purchase is unprecedented. No African-American played a majority ownership role of a team in a major sports league. As the number of black athletes increased, the lack of black ownership became a glaring blind spot.

Not anymore. The N.B.A., pending approval by its board of governors next month, will have an African-American owner, Johnson. While reporters pitched and Johnson fielded questions about race, what occurred to me is that this is where advocates of social reform and transformation keep backing themselves into corners. Critics complained about the lack of black ownership in the N.B.A.; then they get a billionaire owner who is a businessman first and subordinates African-American sensibilities to the bottom line.

Yet with the N.B.A. steaming toward its global destiny, I'd rather have Bob Johnson in the board room than outside it. Asked about the hiring of a black coach at Notre Dame and the rise of chief executives at AOL Time Warner and American Express, Johnson acknowledged the significance of an evolution. ''I'm proud of what African-Americans have accomplished ever since we've been in this country,'' he said. ''And we've been in this country under some difficult conditions. Through all that 200-plus-year history, we have always achieved by trying to be the best despite the odds.''

Johnson was born in Mississippi in 1946 and was reared there before moving with his family to Illinois. He came of age during a time when no amount of education, no amount of wealth, would allow an African-American to escape the stigma of Negroness. Now, with enough education and enough wealth, anyone so inclined can escape the burden of blackness.

Johnson is a perfect fit for the N.B.A., where everything is for sale and promotion. He is a businessman first, foremost and always. Johnson built BET into a major communications network, providing a unique spin on news and images concerning a multidimensional African-American community. But for Johnson, the network was never designed to be an enduring cultural apparatus, but a potential gold mine with a price tag.

Johnson sold BET to Viacom in 2000, ignoring protests that Viacom would not act in the best interests of African-Americans. He explained that the sale was good for one African-American and his family. The sale allowed him to achieve his goal of becoming the United States' first black billionaire. The fears were realized when Viacom announced recently that BET, of which Johnson remained chief executive, would eliminate its news division, effectively cutting off BET's head. News, Johnson explained, was losing money.

Two things came through loud and clear yesterday: Johnson was satisfied that he finally became a member of the N.B.A. club, and there was a sense of triumph that the club understood it needed to diversify.

''You can't be competitive anywhere in this world when you ignore good, quality talent,'' Johnson said. ''That decision was made some 50 years ago when Branch Rickey brought Jackie Robinson into baseball.''

Whether Johnson will have an advantage attracting free-agent players because he's black remains to be seen. If he is no different from any other member of the club, he will be treated by the players like any other member of the club. Maybe worse, because you would expect -- I would expect -- that someone with Johnson's background brings a sensitivity to a board room that has been missing.

If Johnson's treatment of his network is any indication how he will treat his team and the league, his fellow club members don't have to worry that he will challenge the rules. Johnson may be new to the N.B.A., but he understands this: At the end of the day, the color that matters most in this club is green.